The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (“FFIEC”) recently launched a new cybersecurity website, effectively creating another valuable resource for financial institutions when it comes to addressing cybersecurity matters.
Although less well known than Federal agencies with direct oversight and regulatory authority the FFIEC “is a formal interagency body empowered to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and report forms for the federal examination of financial institutions by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).” In short, it covers a wide range of territory.
The new FFIEC cybersecurity site offers a helping hand to financial institutions by providing free webinars and a specific primer regarding the FFIEC and their assessment of cybersecurity in its current state. Furthermore, the website features up-to-date alerts from the FFIEC and any briefings released on issues related to cybersecurity. Links to other notable government agencies like the FBI’s InfraGard website (which SmartEdgeLaw is a member of) and the Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force are provided.
In moving forward, the FFIEC plans to utilize the website as means to educate employees at financial institution regarding numerous cybersecurity risks, especially given cyber-attacks have noticeably become more intricate in nature. In part, the FFIEC plans to accomplish this goal with the launch of a pilot program, which would serve as an aid to institutions, by providing resources on the handling of cybersecurity threats, including training on how to properly conduct threat intelligence, risk management, and incident response to deter or mitigate the effects of a cyberattack.
Previous SmartEdgeLaw posts on the FFIEC’s efforts, are available at:
